Party’s ‘favourite’ lawyers go after holder of anonymous account that pokes fun at right-wing Labour MP – but letter raises questions about data protection and it’s not the only one
The holder of an anonymous account satirising right-wing Labour MP Wes Streeting has received a sinister letter from party lawyers accusing him of harassment and threatening him with unspecified action if he does not ‘cease and desist’.
The satirical premise of the ‘Women4Wes’ account is that it is run by women who love the Ilford right-winger, but in reality it is run by a constituent of the MP who remains anonymous for obvious reasons – and runs the account from an email address set up specifically for the purpose, to avoid tracking.
But that hasn’t stopped Streeting’s lawyers – a firm favoured by the Labour right – or agents from tracking him down at his home address and sending him the threatening letter. W4W published the letter in a tweet demanding to know how they got hold of his sensitive personal information and warning Streeting and his lawyers that he has no intention of ‘ceasing or desisting’:
It’s not Streeting’s first attempt to intimidate the ‘W4W’ account holder – who, remember, is one of Streeting’s constituents. In May, he sent a direct message threatening the use of lawyers if all mention of him was not deleted.
Such threatening letters are a recent but not brand new phenomenon. A similar one was sent to – and correctly ignored by – the activists who run the ‘Not the Andrew Marr Show’ left-wing YouTube channel.
But tracking down individuals to their unpublished home address has sinister undertones – and has been done to others:
Just as sinisterly, Ms Mitchell’s tweet saw an apparently coordinated attempt to ‘doxx’ her, with several respondents posting what they thought – wrongly – was her home address in replies to the Twitter thread. As she pointed out, her real address is not public so they had dredged up an old one.
The full letter is shown below:
Wes Streeting has form when it comes to using lawyers to try to intimidate critics into silence or compliance. In 2018, Skwawkbox revealed that Streeting had left Labour’s first black woman MP Diane Abbott ‘shell-shocked’ by shouting in her face in front of shocked onlookers in a parliamentary corridor, after she made a Commons speech he didn’t like.
Streeting posted tweets calling the article a lie – and had his lawyers send a letter to Skwawkbox demanding a retraction and threatening legal action if this site did not roll over.
In response, Skwawkbox’s lawyers simply spoke to the various eyewitnesses, obtaining further evidence about his actions -and told Streeting that if he thought he had a case in court he should bring it on. He did not, instead resorting to a complaint to regulator IMPRESS – who also found no inaccuracies in the article.
The owner of ‘Women4Wes’ is taking a similarly uncompromising line. He told Skwawkbox:
I’ve received 5+ messages alone saying they have been using this exact firm against dissenting ex members, or even current members.
Let’s just say if Wes wants to start a war with me, he’s picked the wrong guy.
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It would be good to remember that between BlueKeef, Patel and BoJoke laws around anonymity and finding out who an anonymous accounts belong to, has changed. I can’t remember the ins/outs, but I remember reading something about a loophole via dental records, as nuts as that sounds.
I am sure W4W’s legal advice will be aware of that.
Well I kinda had it right, it’s not Dental but Pharma Records via a Norwich Pharmacal order, but still I am sure those 3 Witches above Hubble Bubbled a lot of changes to Social Media legislation, just recently.
I am only pasting this because this is where I read about it and astonishingly remembered where I read about it.
https://t.co/Dy9kGTKZRt
Petulant wannabe TORY TWAT
And a ~180 more the same, who all came craling in from the same hole BLiar gnawed into Parliament via the Sewers of Westminster, when he dragged in Thatcher/Reagan’s flavour of Globalist Neoliberal One Party State!
They all carry a whiff of Au de Raw Sewage!
Yes, well enough about keef smarmer, Terry – this is about weasely screeching…
Oh…hang on…my bad…as you were
Toffee, easily done.
Must have obtained the WAN IP address assigned by the ISP, then the real address. A few ways to do that : maybe ‘anonymous’ clicked a link reaching a web server somebody can access the logs for? That would be the easiest. Any communication with the Labour party (its server logs) would potentially be used for that and then matched. Starmer hired Assaf Kaplan as a “social media listener”, and he worked formerly for the infamous 8200 cyber unit of the Israeli intelligence services.
Another way would be serving Twitter with a formal request or a warrant to get the IP. With that IP, another request or warrant would be required to enquire among ISPs as to whom was assigned that IP address. On what basis though?
The anonymous satirical account ‘Women4Wes’ could have hidden behind a VPN or proxy.
Reply to Andy
Thanks for this useful information, I hadn’t read it when I posted my comment below
I think W4W blogger has a right to find out how his personal details came into the hands of a firm of lawyers and if they were obtained legally and in accordance with the Data Protection legislation. I’m not sure what the process for doing this is but his first step should be to get his legal advice on this matter. I suggest if he is able to identify the source and can take legal action against them he crowd funds his costs. Most of us would happily pay to see the obnoxious Streeting get a taste of his own medicine.
Also as I posted on an earlier occasion when Streeting threatened legal action against someone else who offended him ( can’t remember who it was) he has every right to take whatever action he chooses provided he pays for it himself.
It is not clear who is footing the bill for these cases. Labour party funds are not there to be used to pay for his vindictive and as it appears to me vexatious legal actions so he should immediately clarify the position regarding costs.
As the letters are signed by the firm’s ” lead counsel” the costs will not be cheap but given the very good living Streeting has made out of the Labour party over the years he will be well able to pay them.
Keep away from Snitcher. It’s a sewer.
Smartboy, Streeting should be paying for the legal action he is threatening. But, somehow I don’t think he does like to pay legal bills.
Perhaps, those that still Party members could use a Freedom of Information Request and ask the Party to itemise its legal expenditure (case by case) and outcome from cases (did the Party get its cost back)
We don’t need to identify individuals but rather number of cases and solicitors firms. Hence, we could make academic guesses as to whom and what cases they were and how much money it has costed the Party.
Perhaps SteveH could ask? I am sure he still a member and can prove himself useful.
I agree Maria about Steve H.I also think a FOI request is a good idea but it would probably be refused on one ground or another – Starmer is a lawyer by profession and in case there is anybody in the whole world who hasn’t heard yet -he is a former DPP. He would know all the loopholes and would shamelessly exploit them in my opinion in order to keep this info under wraps.
Solidarity, with @Women4Wes.
Streeting – grow up and join the rest of us, in the adult world! How, on earth, did you come to be elected, as a Member of Parliament, in the first place?
Especially, as a Labour Party Member of Parliament. I see nothing remotely socialist, in your behaviour.
If you’re that thin-skinned, find another line of work.
What angers me that Lee Kern persistently identifies Nelson as
a Corbyn Supporter. Lee Kern is using his legitimate
and understandable desire to get his abuser imprisoned
– to smear Corbyn.
Obviously anyone can call themselves a “Corbyn Supporter” –
but diid noone point out that fact and that Corbyn had nothing
to do with Nelson and he was not in the Labour Party and
never would be? I have looked and can’t find anything in the
numerous MSM reports on this case.That is a rhetorical
question of course because I guess someone spelling that out
– would not be reported. I did note that one commentator
(Hodge?) called him a “Labour Activist”.
AS for Streeting – he is a coward – picking on a satirist who
he thinks cannot defend himself. I wonder if he would persist
if the same satire was broadcast by the BBC?
Weasely (papier-mache-head) screeching deserves his own leave weasely alone YouTube video.
So sue me.
PS the first apostrophe in the headline is mis-placed. It should be “Streeting’s lawyers sinister letter…”
Solidarity.
I think you should delete this ASAP Skwawkbox, unless you’re 100% certain it’s genuine. The address on the letter is a Citizens Advice Bureau in Waltham Forest. The wording is weird, the letterhead fishy. Could be a prank. One that could be costly.
I have googled the name of the Solicitors and they appear
to be genuine with a London address. I can’t read the
address on the letter so do not know if it is the same as
that obtained by googling ..
Maybe – further checks should be done?
Appropos Ben Lapointe’s post –
I have compared the real solicitors name
as advertised with the name on the letterhead
and they appear to use the same font.
Is it just possible that someone is using a real
solicitors name to fake a letter ?
However the point that whoever it was has
somehow obtained Women4Wes’s address
still pertains ..
Also “Lauren Mitchell’s” address ..
and the same firm ..
The address (220 Hoe St, London E17 3AY) matches one given on their website
https://edwardsduthieshamash.co.uk/contact/
(select ‘6’ on the google map)
If you open images in a new tab, from twitter, and most sites now, it gives you the full sized image most of he time.
You get the Thumbnail that opend the image according to your screen res, then open it in a new tab, that gives you the full sized image. In case you ever need to see some small detail like this address.
For what it’s worth:
https://ibb.co/P44NyxQ
Steve H: fair do. It does matches. But still weird, in a different way. Is it common for sollicitors to share an address with a CAB? Or is it an old address and they didn’t update their site? Or an old Google photo?
Ben – I would imagine that the small door to the left of the CAB is the entrance to their offices above.
Generally down to a shared building, its not uncommon, to see shared addresses especially in the big smoke.
Icing on the cake when Labour has another right winger and Pervert called streeting leading the shitshow, I wonder if he’ll the pedo queen Hodge onto the front bench???
Why do you think that he is a “Pervert”?